Local Dentists Are “Bridging the Gap”

The medical establishment receives continual recognition, praise, and sometimes criticism for activities within the medical community. This is only natural since many aspects of medicine involve life and death matters, and none of us are exempt from enjoying the advantages of living in a country that has such an abundance of excellent medical specialists and services.
However, there is another group of public health providers that also deliver essential services to the public -- our dental care community. We have some twelve dentists serving Jackson County, and these professionals are routinely engaged in many charitable public health activities. Throughout Northwest Florida, the dental care providers give assistance to the needy at a level that far exceeds the level of benevolence demonstrated by dentists in the rest of Florida. They routinely perform these needed services without acclaim or fanfare.
One state wide charitable program created by the Florida Dental Association is titled "Project: Dentists Care", which features sponsoring free clinics for the needy. The signature program for children within the Association is the "Give Kids A Smile Day" events. These have been held annually in Jackson County for the past three years, with almost every eligible area dentist participating. The program works closely with the Jackson County Health Department, with the county health nurses referring eligible children to the clinics. At this year’s clinic in February, forty-six children were treated, ages four to sixteen. The value of this free care was over $9,000.
In the Northwest Region (Florida Panhandle), there were sixty one dentists who participated in these clinics, giving services valued at $128,539. State wide, the services had a total value of $562,791. Northwest Florida is the smallest region with the fewest dentist in the population, yet it ranked second in participation for the entire state.
Participants this year were; Dr. Bob Payne, Dr. Matthew Payne, Dr. Larry Cook, Dr. Henry Knowles, Dr. Michael Stripling, Dr. Jana Calhoun, Dr. Terry Nichols, Dr. Forrest Bowen, Dr. James Campbell, as well as dental hygienists Letitia Elliott, Sherry Slichter, and Victoria Branch.
Local Dentist, Dr. Robert Payne is currently the State Secretary/Treasurer for Project:Dentists Care, as well as being on the State council for Dental Health Care and Health. He has been active in organizing and assisting in "Give Kids A Smile" clinics throughout the state.
The need for making dental care available to needy children is heightened by inadequacies in the State Medicaid Dental Care Program. Very few dentists will treat Medicaid patients, except in cases of critical need. The failure of the dental programs under Medicaid is created by the extremely low level of reimbursement to the provider under the guidelines of the program.
Normally, a private dental practice will realize an overhead cost that is approximately 60% of the fees charged for services. Under Medicaid, the dentist is repaid only 25% of their normal fee for a procedure, thus falling far short of even covering basic overhead costs. The dentist will lose money on any Medicaid patient that is treated. Thus, the state’s needy citizens are left with few options for dental care.
Locally, this shortfall is partially filled by the State Public Health system which locally has a clinic for eligible citizens located near the Public Health Department facility on 4th Street. Additionally the department operates a Dental Care Bus, (Smiles on Wheels) that sets up mobile clinics in the county to treat children. Additionally, there is a free clinic named the St. Andrews Clinic in Bay County. However, there is generally a three month waiting list for this service.
In addition to these state wide charitable programs, many dentists engage in charitable services through other associations, clubs, and church activities. An example of this is Dr. Robert Payne’s involvement with the University of Florida Dental School’s Christian Dental Society.
For the past three years Dr. Payne has supervised dental students as they provided dental care for the needy in Honduras. They worked in orphanages, schools, and rural villages providing both routine and emergency care.
Dr. Payne has participated in dental missions in many underdeveloped countries over his career. These countries include Haiti, Brazil, Jamaica, and Honduras. He has taken an active role in over twenty missions to Honduras. One project in Honduras involved building and equipping a dental clinic in a hospital in a small town where no dental care was available. For this particular project, Dr. Payne was given the prestigious award of "Humanitarian Of The Year for 2004" by the Florida Dental Health Foundation.
He is not alone in volunteering. Many of the NW Florida dentist have participated in other overseas dental mission projects. From this we can see that just as most physicians give of themselves to help their fellow man through participation in charitable activities, in Northwest Florida we also have a large group of caring dentists that are also providing valuable services to "Bridge The Gap" for those in need.